


Last Laugh

by theragingstorm



Series: New Earth-1 [5]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, F/M, Family, Gen, Love, Multi, Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Assault, Past Violence, Recovery, Revenge, mentions of child death, the joker finally dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 02:00:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17377445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theragingstorm/pseuds/theragingstorm
Summary: The cycle finally ends, and three people get their long-awaited revenge, in different ways.





	Last Laugh

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever imagine a specific scene, and when you go to write it down, it turns into a full-blown story? Well, in my case, I’m happy it did.
> 
> This takes place within context of the earlier ones, of course, but it’s not necessary to read them to understand this.
> 
> (Certain dialogue is from The Killing Joke and The Batman Chronicles #5, and certain references are made to Death In The Family and Birds of Prey vol 1.)

It was a crisp, windy day in midwinter when the Joker broke out of Arkham for the last time.

On damp days, Barbara’s scars tended to ache. But that January morning was cold and bright, and it was her husband’s day off, so they reclined across their bed comfortably buried in the pillows and swathed in the duvet.

Lines of code lay before her, endless zeroes and ones in an endless swell of the new-familiar language. Her fingers tapped through it, adding another layer to the Watchtower system’s firewall, checking on the security of the Batcave, going through her essential cameras one by one.

The sun had fully risen by the time she was done with her rounds. Satisfied with her work, she took off her glasses and set her tablet aside.

When she did, the sudden movement clearly caught Dick’s attention; he glanced up from the book he’d borrowed from her.

“That the last of it?”

“Should be, yeah.” She flexed her arms up over her head, lazily rolling her shoulders. “Let’s see, I’m supposed check up on everyone again after lunch, then again in the evening, and we promised we’d pick up the baby from my dad’s at four, but other than that...” She tipped her head towards him. “I’m all free.”

His kiss was sudden, but expected; though she noted out of the corner of her eye that he’d remembered to put _The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo_  down properly instead of throwing it. The little detail, remembering her finickiness about her books, made her kiss him back hard, grasping him by the shoulders and pulling herself up, so that she straddled his waist, her unmoving legs bracketing his lap.

His touch at her neck was feather-light, caressing the delicate skin, making her shiver. He pulled open each button on her nightgown with care, pulling it off like it was a kind of artifact. She smiled at him, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear; his wonderstruck gaze traveled over her bare body, like it was the first time he was seeing it. She was all muscles and curves now; she’d lost her baby weight over the last several months, but she’d never be the skinny girl she was when she’d donned the Batgirl cape. She’d never get her scarred skin back to the way it was before either.

Especially the huge, puckered marks lying opposite each other across her belly and back.

Dick’s hand traced the curve of her throat, down so that it cupped one of her breasts. The other gripped her waist, thumb tracing delicately along the ugly bullet scar.

“You’re awfully quiet this morning,” she observed. “You okay?”

“Just lost in thought.” He nuzzled at her shoulder. “It’s been so quiet since last spring, I almost forgot I was living in Gotham. I’m glad, though. I’m glad I get to spend more time with you, with the rest of our family.”

She thought of them too now: of Bruce, who’d opened up and mended bridges, Cass and Damian, who had redeemed themselves and more, Tim and Steph, who were secure and happy, Duke, who was blossoming under his new tutelage, Jason, who’d started to finally, finally grow past who he’d been and his old bitterness. They were her family too now, as much as the beautiful man in her bed.

The man she’d finally been able to love fully.

She stroked affectionately over his hair, pressing soft kisses to his head.

“You’re sweet,” she said softly. “And here I was thinking that you were trying to come up with another silly joke or pickup line.”

He kissed her collarbone in return.

“I can do that too. In fact —” He lifted his head, “I think I will.”

“Oh —” She rolled her eyes, her smile not dropping, “Oh no, here we go.”

“Somebody turn on the Bat-Signal, ‘cause it is illegal to look that good. And you should know what’s illegal and what’s not, God knows I do.”

“You didn’t need to ad-lib that last bit.”

“Okay, so: I must be a birdwatcher, ‘cause I’m looking at a great pair of tits.”

Barbara actually laughed.

“I think _I_ watch birds more around here, _Nightwing_.”

“Fair enough.” Dick grinned at her guilelessly, his soft black hair flopping in his eyes. “Last one: You must be Oracle, because you have everything anyone could ever ask for.”

She paused, her chest feeling warm. Then she sighed fondly, shaking her head, before pressing one last long, lingering kiss to his lips.

“I can’t believe I’m going to have sex with you.”

“Well...you don’t have to.”

“No.” She pushed him down neatly, so that he lay back, while she still straddled him. “No, I’m going to.”

Her husband smiled at her, and soon they were laughing and gasping as he thrust up into her, she was lost in pleasure and falling down on the newly stained sheets with him warm and dripping out of her, and she was perfectly content with everything. She thought, not for the first time, that it was lucky she’d sworn to stay with him for the rest of their lives, to link herself to his family, because god damn she’d made mistakes, but _god damn_ if she didn’t love him and the others so much.

 

* * *

 

_Six Years Ago_

 

“Why...why are you doing this?”

The broad, sickening smile didn’t drop as he ripped the last button off her blouse. Her side was in twisting, throbbing agony, so that she could barely think, but even through the pain she knew she had to be losing too much blood, but she couldn’t feel her legs, why couldn’t she feel her legs?

“To prove a point.” Those cold, dry fingers made for the clasp on her bra, while he raised his drink with the other hand. “Here’s to crime.”

“No...”

The cackles began anew as he ripped her skirt off, but she didn’t feel that either, only heard the laugh, saw the camera begin to flash. Those flashes burned themselves into her corneas, she didn’t think she would ever forget them as he bent over her.

She slipped in and out of consciousness from blood loss and the pain in her side, and the new pain in between the flashes, in between him repositioning her, the sharp pain that spiked in between her legs. The endless tears poured from her eyes unbidden, they hurt from the overly-bright bursts of light, the light was blinding, what was left of the feeling in her body seemed entirely devoted to pain. She longed to crawl back into a kind of darkness that had been in abundance when she was Batgirl, a comforting night, anything but that light and the agony she felt.

He used her almost as an afterthought to the way he was already using her. She was already naked, already splayed out before him, already in pain, already helpless, so why not?

“Can’t say that was the best I’ve had,” he said briskly, cheerfully, as he stood once more, setting down his camera. Her crotch still ached, dripping wretchedly, miserably. “The way you just lie there, why, I’d think you couldn’t use your legs.”

Darkness was beginning to seep into the corners of her vision, and she welcomed it, welcomed the relief unconsciousness would bring. One hand gravitated to the side of her belly, trying, however futilely it was, to stop some of the bleeding in the meantime.

“Don’t pout, Barbie girl. This is all for your daddy’s sake, for Batsy’s sake himself. Not like I’d ruin any old girl — or maybe I would. But at least you’re ruined for a good cause; a cause of mine, of course. Thanks for loaning me your body for that, Barbie girl, even if you didn’t have a choice — and even if it’s in less than prime condition at the moment.”

The fresh wave of cackles that followed chased her into the blackness, where she was gone, where she felt and saw and heard nothing, _thank God_ that she felt and saw and heard nothing, except for terror for Bruce and her father, as much as her humiliation and wretchedness and her newfound, blinding, overpowering hatred.

 

* * *

 

Barbara lay there, snuggling next to Dick, letting him lazily play with her hair. His body beside hers was warm and comforting, his background chatter a little silly, but pleasant too. It was very uniquely him.

“So then Wally said, ‘Roy, you really can’t talk, you’re the only one of us here with a normal human child. Lian doesn’t fly or have super-strength, she doesn’t control water, she’s not a speedster —’ Garth cut him off there and said, ‘Wally, you do realize that Dick has a human child too, right?’ So then Wally said, ‘Dick’s kid said his first word at eight months, he’s not gonna be anywhere near the realm of normal.’”

“He’s not wrong,” Barbara conceded, smirking a bit. “I take credit for that.”

“I like how _you_ take credit for our kid being smart and _I_ have to take credit for him trying to climb up the curtains. So anyway. Then Donna said —”

She rested her head on his shoulder, shutting her eyes, buried in the soft bed as she listened to him chatter about his friends. Right then, all was right in the world.

But then was when she heard the loud, insistent beeping from across the house.

Both of them lifted their heads, recognizing what that meant. She immediately threw the sheets back, snatching up her glasses and her bathrobe before hastily tying it, while he quickly pulled underwear on, then reached for his uniform draped over the top of the dresser.

She quickly rolled to her workstation, powering on her system and clipping on her headset. 

“Oracle speaking.”

Bruce’s voice rumbled through her speakers, ragged, even hoarser than usual.

“Turn on the news,” was all he said. In the background, she could hear anxious, hushed chatter between the rest of the family.

Barbara took a breath and clicked on the news stations, letting them play across the screen.

_“Reports just in: there has been a mass slaughter of guards and personnel at Arkham Asylum. Inmates have mostly avoided this fate, though in the following chaos, two of the high-profile inmates have broken out: Pamela Isley, better known as Poison Ivy, and Harleen Quinzel, better known as Harley Quinn. Also, we’ve just received word that the mass murders were the method of escape from the asylum for the criminal lunatic the Joker, who the public is advised to be on the alert against, as he is well known to be usually armed and always dangerous. Numbers of the dead have so far been tallied up to be...”_

She stared numbly at the photographs and the numbers scrawling before her. Sixty-seven guards and personnel had been murdered. Some of the guards had been shot with their own guns; they’d been the lucky ones. Several people had been stabbed through the eye or mouth with the doctors’ pens. Some had been attacked with the broken edge of a beer bottle one of the guards had snuck in. One woman had been clubbed to death with a chair. One man had been strangled with his own tie. The rest had had their throats cut open by a scalpel he’d obtained from the asylum’s now-dead physician, their necks slit open into bloody curves, gruesome red smiles.

Dick came to her side fully dressed in his black and blue, just pressing his mask over his eyes and screwing his com into his ear.

“What is...” He stared in horror at her screens. “...Oh my God.”

Through the coms, there was a chorus of soft sighs.

“He’s getting worse, too,” Tim said at last. “Ten years ago, he wouldn’t have needed to kill anyone to get out. Now that they’ve had to beef up the security every time he breaks out, every time he _does_ break out he has to get more violent.”

“And more warmed up for when he turns on the civilian population,” Duke said miserably.

“How are we going to keep him from committing more damage if imprisoning him causes deaths too, if he’s getting more and more comfortable with killing more people just to escape?” Damian demanded, furious.

Nobody had an answer.

“Sixty-seven people from this _alone_ ,” Stephanie blurted. “ _Sixty-seven_.”

Cass made a noise in her throat like a mournful keen.

Barbara did her best to slow her breathing, trying to steady the heart lashing against her ribcage. Dick laid his hand on her shoulder; she reached up and clutched his gloved fingers like a lifeline.

“We need to locate him as soon as possible,” she said, refusing to let her voice shake. “Before he can start planning something. According to the news, he was last seen heading towards downtown, and according to the cops, to get more specific —” She flicked on the police scanner, “— he’s been spotted twice near the Bowery.”

“We’ll sweep the whole district,” Bruce decided. “Robin, go with Black Bat. Batgirl, go with Red Robin. Signal, you’re with me. Nightwing —”

“I’ll call Batwoman to back me up, and grab as many others as I can along the way,” Dick promised. Then he paused. “Wait a minute. Has anyone heard from Red Hood?”

“No, he’s been totally radio silent,” said Tim. “I’m not surprised, though. It’s supposed to be his day off; he’s pretty particular about keeping his com off when he’s not supposed to be working with us.”

“Thank God,” Bruce sighed.

“Are you kidding?” Steph exclaimed. “He’s going to be furious enough about this whole situation when he does find out, he’ll be even more that he didn’t hear about this.”

“Yes, but in the meantime, this’ll bring up too many bad memories. It’s best that he doesn’t go with us this time.”

Barbara wrapped her other arm around her chest, taking another deep breath. A suspicion had started to grow in her mind, but she didn’t vocalize it.

“I’ll be on call if you need me,” she said. “Good luck, you guys.”

The kids all clamored their goodbyes, before each clicking off. Bruce sighed again with a bone-deep tiredness before he did the same.

“I hope they’ll all be okay,” Dick said when they were gone. “And everyone else...”

She squeezed his fingers a little tighter.

“They’re all very competent, including Duke. The rest of the city’s heroes are too. And my dad, Sarah, and our baby are safe at home.”

 _But none of that is a guarantee,_  hissed a poisonous little voice in her head. _As you know full well._

Her scar throbbed.

“You be safe out there too, okay? Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Define ‘stupid.’”

His tone was light, but she was completely serious when she looked up at him.

“I mean it, Dick. I know you want to save everyone, but don’t do it at your own expense.”

“Hey.” He bent, kissing her. “I’ll be back. I always come back, don’t I?”

She watched him go to the balcony, her heart still sick with worry for him and the others, watching him get ready to leap.

“I love you.”

He turned and looked at her one last time, offering her a hopeful smile.

“I love you too.”

Then he fell.

  

* * *

 

_Six Years Ago_

 

She had lost count of how many times she’d woken up in that _fucking_ hospital bed. Her father had been in to see her a lot, Dick had too, flying all the way out from the Titans base. Bruce had mostly stayed away. The Joker had already caused enough pain in his name for a hundred Batmen.

“No...he wanted me alive. Not because I have any intrinsic worth or meaning to him, of course. No, shooting me, kidnapping my dad...it was all just a way to get at you. Do you understand how humiliating, how demeaning that is? My life has no importance save in relation to you!”

Though she’d said that to his face, Bruce had still paid for her hospital bills. Her father had cried again when that had happened; it had hurt enough, seeing him cry so much. Seeing the pain in Bruce’s face, hearing it in Dick’s voice when he turned up to talk to her.

But it was so much worse with Jason.

He was only fifteen, but he’d already learned and experienced far more than he should have, and he still looked at her like he was sharing every ounce of her ugly feelings. She saw them, much as she hated it, mirrored under those soft black curls, in those young eyes.

“You don’t have to stay all night, Little Wing,” she told him, gazing for the millionth time at the cold white expanse of the room, the flimsy paper cards, the wilting flowers, the single spiderwebbing crack across the ceiling’s otherwise pristine paint. The crack that made the ceiling remind her of herself. “Weren’t you still looking for your birth mother?”

“I found her, she’s in Ethiopia.” His eyes were trained on the nubbly carpet. “Providing aid for civilians. She’s a doctor ‘n shit, y’know.”

“That’s wonderful, Jason.”

He glanced up, looking vulnerable, like the boy he was.

“Do you think she’ll like me?”

“I can’t see any reason why she wouldn’t.”

One very specific doctor then came back in, holding a file in hand. Dread seeped down into Barbara’s stomach.

“Ms. Gordon, your results just came back.”

“And...?”

“You tested negative for both STIs _and_ pregnancy.”

The gasp that left her mouth took weeks of fear from her shoulders. She collapsed back into the thin pillows, almost crying with relief.

“Why did you need to get tested for those? Did you sleep with someone new recently?” Jason asked without thinking. Then all his childhood knowledge, all his first-hand experience, all caught up to him at once. His eyes grew wide with realization and horror.

The doctor exhaled softly, setting Barbara’s file down.

“Yes, it was horrible,” she said consolingly to Jason. “But she managed to avoid a worst-case scenario. Ms. Gordon, you’ll be going home in three days. Best of luck to you.”

She left. For a few seconds, the hospital room was quiet.

Then Jason sprang to his feet, climbing onto her bed and burrowing down under the sheets next to her. He was too old to be doing that, she supposed, but he was so much smaller and thinner than most fifteen-year-olds, even after eating well for the last three years, that she naturally wrapped her arm around him. She wanted to protect him, to make sure nothing else bad ever happened to him. Especially nothing like what had had happened to her.

“I don’t think I’ll ever have children anyway. I’ll never find the right person, it seems.”

“I’d fucking kill him,” the boy curled beside her swore. “I’d fucking kill him for everything he’s done to you. And you’re not even close to the only one he’s hurt so much.”

She would not cry in front of a child. She would not.

In fact, she never wanted to cry in front of anyone ever again.

“You can’t kill him, Jason. I don’t want that burden on you, and besides, we don’t kill.” The realization sunk into her again, and her repressed sob sounded almost like she was choking. “Not that I’ll ever be a part of ‘we’ anymore.”

He clung to her, and she wished he would leave, wanted nothing more than to spare him from what had been inflicted on her. But still, he clung to her, refusing to leave, refusing to spare himself from all her pain and far more.

Dick came back in later, and so, when she was inches from sleeping and it might’ve been a dream, she could’ve sworn she saw Bruce appear at her window again. She saw him watching her, watching her hold his boys close.

 

* * *

 

Without telling anyone else, a year ago and a half ago, when his revived partnership with the family had still been new, Oracle had planted a tracker on the Red Hood’s motorcycle. Then, it was because she’d doubted he’d tell any of them if he got into any sort of trouble. In the present, she turned out to be right.

It told her what the others could not know, that she had been right: he wasn’t at home with his friends, his fiancé, his dog, his girls, the happiness he’d finally managed to carve out of a life that’d consistently spat in his face. He was already en-route to the Bowery, the very worst part of the city, naturally where the Joker would be.

She refused to tell Bruce yet.

Instead, while moving her Hummer through Old Gotham towards downtown, she called her father.

“I guess you saw the news,” Jim greeted her. “You alright, Barbara?”

“Could be worse.” She checked the screen of her tablet, ensuring that she was still on her brother-in-law’s tail. “Are you alright?”

“I’m here at home. Couldn’t get another babysitter last minute, so the SWAT team’s having to manage without me. The kid’s alright though, I just put him down for his nap ten minutes ago.”

Her shoulders stayed tight even as he said it. She’d tied her long hair up, jeans and boots and a black jacket making her look almost innocuous, even as her escrima sticks lay on the passenger seat. Her knuckles were almost white on the steering wheel.

“Daddy, can you and Sarah do me a favor?”

“Sure, Babs.”

“ _Don’t_ open the door without checking, no matter what. And don’t open it for _anyone_ you don’t know.”

Jim let out a long, ragged breath.

“I’ll never forgive myself for what he did to you, you know.”

“Why? It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was me he was after, not you. He didn’t know you were Batgirl. And I was the one who refused a guard outside our door. Just for the sake of appearances, to seem more welcoming, more on people’s level. And look what happened to you because of it.”

She let out a long breath of her own.

“Dad, he would’ve killed any guards. There was no stopping him. Look, I blamed myself for what happened for ages, for not being more careful. I blamed Bruce a little bit too, because of the sick bond this monster pursues between them. But it’s no one’s fault but his. I just...right now, a little extra carefulness, a little extra control, would just make me feel better, that’s all.”

“I don’t blame you, what with the baby in the house and all. It’s how I felt when you and your brother were still living with me.”

The comparison gave her momentary vertigo. But it was true, she and her father were both leaders in a dangerous line of work. She and her son were both the oldest children of said leaders. And if her children were anything like her and Dick, anything at all, they’d want to do exactly what she did: pursue dangerous work with or without their parents’ say-so.

She knew her father didn’t mean it that way, but the thought of her son being grown someday, going into some form of crimefighting, or someone figuring out that he was Oracle’s and Nightwing’s child, and the Joker coming after him because of either of those, made her want to vomit.

He’d invaded her home, shot her, severely injured her, taken pictures of her bloodied naked body before raping her, traumatized her, and he hadn’t even known who she was.

He’d tried to drive her father insane just to prove a point.

He’d succeeded in driving Duke’s parents insane for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

He’d stalked and tormented and murdered plenty of other civilians too.

She had certainly not been the only woman he’d assaulted.

He’d tortured and brutally murdered Jason when he was a child to hurt Bruce.

Even Harley Quinn...Harley Quinn, who was definitely no angel herself, but she’d just had the misfortune of capturing his attention before suffering the years of manipulation, of emotional and physical abuse, of attempted murder even, from someone who claimed to love her. Nobody deserved that.

Nobody deserved the Joker.

“I’m glad to hear you’re all okay,” was all she said. “Can you check in with me again when he wakes up?”

“Sure, honey. I’ll look for you all on the TV. Make sure it’s good news.”

“I’ll do my best.”

She hung up, focusing again on the road before her.

 

* * *

 

_Five Years Ago_

 

Ashley Mavis Powell had been convicted guilty on all accounts, and Barbara felt the kind of peace and vindication that she hadn’t felt in nearly a year.

So she was Oracle now. The new name tasted sweet on her tongue. Felt satisfying to type out.

“You’re getting married?”

Her father nodded, ducking his head slightly over his coffee cup.

“Aw, Dad, don’t tell me it was just because I finally got my own place.” Her tone was light, but she felt an odd tug in her chest. One hand moved to grip the side of her wheelchair. “I mean, by all accounts, marry her.”

“Barbara, I know how much your mother leaving hurt —”

“I don’t miss her, Dad. She’s gone. She’s not coming back. And I...I like Sarah. I’m glad you’re happy with her.”

She’d left her fiancé with just a note, without even telling him what had happened to her. She’d left because she was certain that she’d get left as soon as he took a look at her in her chair. Most of her civilian friends were gone now, which left her with almost no one.

“Maybe you should try dating again too, honey. Or at the very least, try and make some more friends.”

She thought of the op she had planned, where she would borrow a single female superhero to do it for her — strike up a professional partnership, maybe. Though more likely than not,she and that hero would go their separate ways for good after it was over.

“I don’t really think I can do either.”

“Is this about the chair?”

“Sort of. It’s a lot harder to find people who like me now. They’re all repelled, or they’re nasty-ass ‘wheel-chasers,’ and those are easy to spot either way.” She shrugged. “Personally, I prefer it like this. I’m not there yet, but...I’m used to this now. I’ll always miss my legs, but...who needs love? Right now, I need to focus on being independent.”

“Barbara, you’ve got too big of a heart to not love. To not do things out of love. You do your work out of love, don’t you?”

She could’ve sworn there was a flash of knowing in his eyes.

“I’m already doing way better than I thought I could after getting shot, Dad. What more could I ask for?”

Jim laid his hand over hers.

“Maybe. But I’ll always love you, Barbara.”

“I’ll always love you too, Dad.”

And she was beginning to love the new career she was building. It fulfilled her beyond belief.

Did she even _want_ anything else?

 

* * *

 

Jason’s black-and-red bike had been parked outside — of course — an abandoned joke shop. Sticking to theme, as always.

The front of the joke shop was falling to pieces, the window boarded up, the rotten door kicked in. Two homeless guys were asleep in the alley opposite, dirty enough that they had blended with the wall and fortunately avoided notice, the ground littered with garbage and used condoms and dark spots of both human and animal piss. Several ragged pigeons pecked listlessly at the sidewalk.

Barbara parked almost on autopilot, descending from the Hummer. Though not before making sure to pick up her escrima, sliding them into the hidden compartment in her armrest. She rolled silently to the entrance, pushing the door open.

She wasn’t seen at first, nor could she see anything in the dusty darkness. But she immediately heard the high, cold, wheezing cackles, the laughter that had haunted her for over half a decade.

“After all these years, after all we’ve gone through, you’re really going to kill me? Really? Why, I don’t believe it.”

Barbara took a deep breath, bracing herself for Jason’s reply.

But it wasn’t Jason who answered.

“Oh, ya’d better believe it. Ya’d better.”

She blinked, her eyes finally adjusting.

Jason, wearing his mask but not his helmet, fully dressed in black leather with the broad red bat across his chest, held a gun in hand almost cruelly tight — and stood all the way on the other side of the room, hidden in shadows. Instead, the woman with her finger on the trigger stood in the center, in her red-and-black bodysuit and her white-and-black makeup, her face twisted with loathing.

“Why, Harley, baby. I thought we had some good times.”

As he said it, Barbara heard her own voice ring in her ears, heard her own sobs of agony and humiliation, with that voice overlaying it, cooing at her in satisfaction, murmuring as he readjusted her body on the ruined carpet.

“Fuck ya ‘good times,’” Harley snarled. “The only good thing about ya getting out is that ya let me and Red get out too. And now I can do what I shoulda done years ago.”

She clicked the safety off, and Barbara turned her attention to the Joker.

He hadn’t even had time to change out of his orange jumpsuit, the straitjacket knotted casually around his waist. Despite the loaded gun pointed in his face, he was still perfectly calm, still grinning away, the edges of his blood-red smile nearly reaching the very end of his bleached-white face. The green of his hair made her think of acid, of polluted waters.

“You keep saying that, Harley, and yet you never do. You know, something struck me, and it really is funny! When you broke my poor little heart to run away with that sentient plant, I think you actually thought you could settle down. Did you think that? Did you think you get a little peace, get away from me?” His eyes suddenly hardened, and he raised his voice. “Did _any_ of the three of you think that?”

Lightning seemed to strike her chest; she jerked, shuddering backwards. Jason tensed, his breathing hard. Harley looked between the two of them, surprised, her gun lowering.

The Joker’s gaze swept the room; he stepped back, lifting his hands like a showman.

“I mean, how cute! The gang’s all here! Harley-girl, Barbie-girl, and Birdie-boy. My, my, you all do look better for wear. Eating healthy? Drinking enough water? The odd orgasm or two? I’d wager so, I’d wager you _all_ have someone sleeping next to you, hm?”

“As opposed to you,” Jason retorted, the first to regain his voice. “And it shows. Are you rotting alive as much as you look? Because it’s an improvement.”

“Ooh, that _stings_ me, kiddo, it really does. You always did have the sharpest beak of the Bat’s brats; I’m not surprised that even _I_ couldn’t blunt it! Stop me if you’ve heard this one: a Robin walks into a crow bar —”

“I’m going to kill you,” Jason replied calmly. The rage she knew was seething in him wasn’t even slightly belied by his tone. He stood up straight and began to move over, big and light on his feet, like a stalking tiger. “Batman’s not here to save you now, Joker. Those sixty-seven people are the last ones you’ll ever hurt.”

“Oh no, you’re right!” He held a skeletal white hand to his forehead. “He’s not here!” His voice then became sly. “But what will Batsy think of you when he finds out? That his precious little birdie, that he thought was so reformed, that he thought was part of his family again, has dipped back into his old ways? Is your spot among him and his secure enough for him to know all that?”

Jason came to a halt.

“Hmm. Didn’t think so.”

“ _I_ ain’t got nothing to lose,” Harley said loudly, regaining her spirit. “ _My_ family are civvies, they know what I am already and they can’t kick me out. And my girl won’t think nothing bad of me if I kill ya. In fact, I think she’ll throw me a party.”

He whipped on her next, swiftly but almost gently cupping her white-painted chin in his hand, like she was a child.

“Oh, Harley. You, be the one to take me down? My baby, my sweetie-pie, you know exactly how competent and smart you are...ha! That’s a joke in itself.” He spared a moment to laugh. Barbara shuddered. Harley flinched. “ _He_ at least is packing some of that patented righteous Bat-rage. You got nothing. Just like you.”

Harley’s shoulders shook; the Joker let her go. Her grip on the gun had noticeably loosened.

For a second or so, he just kept looking at her. Looking at her in a way that was making her noticeably deflate, noticeably shake in place.

“But what about you, Missy Gordon?”

Barbara started again, her hands involuntarily gripping the armrests.

He turned slowly to face her. That white face, that broad red smile, those cold eyes, they had appeared in her dreams, imprinted themselves on her brain, so that she would never, never forget.

She said nothing. He began to walk towards her, almost lazy, dropping one hand into his pocket.

“Don’t you want to kill me? You certainly tried.” For a moment, the casual visage dropped, and she saw the loathing in his eyes for what she had done to his teeth, his infamous smile. She kept her shoulders taut. “My dental surgery bills sure skyrocketed that month. But I digress. Where’s that anger, hm? Where’s Jimmy’s mean little girl, the girl I got to see in Cali? For we had some good times too, we certainly did —”

His gaze flicked down from her face to her left side. At first, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at, especially when his eyes bulged with shock.

Then he laughed harder than he’d had the whole time.

“Oh, oh, hoo hoo hee!” He doubled over, wiping his cheeks. “Oh God, it’s too good! It’s too good! You’re _married?_ ”

Her throat seemed to close up.

Harley shot a surprised look Jason’s way; his masked face had become like stone.

“ _Who_ married _you?_ He must either be the biggest fool ever, or have the biggest sense of humor of them all! Either way, I love it!” He kept laughing; the sound raked over her nerves, wound around her brain like barbed wire. “Even getting past inevitably figuring out what a mean little bitch you are, he has to know you can’t walk or do anything. He has to know where my bullet got you. And I’ll bet he knows I got to see all of you before he did. But despite all that, he willingly went and bought damaged goods! What a man!”

Barbara’s fingers twitched slightly. Her ears felt like they were ringing, like all of a sudden, her ever-moving mind was completely focused.

“He can’t be the only one of his kind, either. What do your friends think of that, what do they think of you? What does that old man of yours think? Does Batsy know about it all, does he wrack his conscience for what he could’ve done to save you, or does he linger on his time with little ole me that night instead? Do his little birds know?”

He perked up, having suddenly had a thought. “Did that hubby of yours manage to put any babies in you yet? Is that even _possible?_  You got a baby of his stashed around here somewhere, even _with_ your body all loopy and wacky? Lord knows even I couldn’t manage that, but maybe the challenge you are appeals to a guy like him. You know what they say: what’s the point of getting a wild horse? Eventually breaking it into a tame horse, of course! And there’s no horse or girl that exists that can’t be broken.”

He moved in until the two of them were nearly nose to nose, bending to put his hands on his knees, his smile almost pitying, exactly like the strangers on the street who didn’t know how else to look at a woman in a wheelchair.

“And if you’re going to break her one way, you might as well try more ways. Your friends, your family, your husband and kids, what’s it gonna take to break you all the way, little Missy Gordon?”

It wasn’t a second later before her escrima connected with his jaw.

 

* * *

 

_Four Years Ago_

 

“So you didn’t picture me this way, huh?”

“I didn’t mean it like _that_.”

“Well, then, how?”

“Skinnier and geekier-looking. Also, brunette. Not as cute. I gotta say, the clothes and the glasses are mostly the same, though.”

Barbara couldn’t help but smile at that, even dryly.

Black Canary was only one of her Clock Tower’s occupants that afternoon. Robin, Batgirl, Spoiler, Nightwing, even Batman himself crowded her couches. The “hunt for Oracle” had taken a lot out of the Bats, but yet they had come to check on her.

Tim had moved over to her workstation, peering at her computers in curious fascination. Cassandra had made herself comfortable, curled up on the couch like a cat, her cowl pulled off, her face soft with satisfaction. Stephanie was in her kitchen, singing something under her breath and pouring herself a glass of orange juice. Bruce sat in her armchair, looking as stony as always, his cowl very much still in place — but he kept shooting her looks of concern, kept making sure she really was alright.

Dick, for his part, came over to join her and Canary. She looked over from Barbara to give him a very appreciative once-over.

“Are you sure you two’s partnership is ‘strictly professional’?”

“Dinah!”

“I’m just saying. You’re both great at what you do, you both run in the same circles so I know you know each other pretty well, and now I know for sure that you’re both _way_ too attractive to be single.”

Dick pointed at Dinah.

“I like this one. She’s smart.”

Dinah reached out and pinched his cheek.

“I like you too, cutie.”

Barbara dropped her face into her hands.

“This. This right here. This is my nightmare.”

Both of them laughed, while she put her splayed fingers on her forehead, shaking her head fondly.

“I’m glad you both came out of all that okay,” Dick said kindly, at last. “It was really great to meet you, Dinah. Just give me a minute, I want to make sure the kids don’t get into any trouble.”

He moved across her home with easy grace, loping over to where Tim was huddled over her keyboard. Dinah looked off into the distance, then started and looked down.

“It’s odd to have someone to look at when I want to talk to you.”

“And someone so far down.” The words slipped out.

Dinah gave her a look.

“Sorry. I’m not used to...what I have with you.”

“And not what you have with them.”

“What are you talking about?”

Dinah nodded over to the Bats.

“They came all the way out here to check on you. They obviously care about you beyond tech help.” The older woman’s gaze became gentle. “And so do I. I like you, Oracle — Barbara. You’re my partner.”

She rubbed at her eyes.

“I just...I can’t lose them. I already hate that Desmond went after you...god, I have few enough people who care about me as it is.”

“I think you have more people who care about you than you think.” Dinah patted her shoulder. “For one thing, I think Huntress might actually like you.”

“Oh come on, Huntress hates me.”

Dinah raised an eyebrow.

“You’re clearly tough, Barbara. And I fully respect what you do, ‘cause I have no idea how to do it myself. And you can be a mean, bossy bitch sometimes —”

“Do you have a point?”

“Yes. You’re not as cold as you act. You got a big, fiery heart under there. I don’t know what hurt you, I don’t know how long it’s gonna take for you to level with me, but you gotta know that that’s true.”

She left to go talk to Bruce, leaving Barbara to wonder — and to hope.

 

* * *

 

She felt the jawbone crack under her escrima first.

Then she slammed the next one against the other side, then the other, then again, then again, the white skin crumpling under her force. Her cold rage didn’t blind her; she had never been more intent in her life.

She would _not_ let her loved ones be taken from her. Especially not by that madman. She loved them, she loved _countless_ people now, and she’d brought them willingly into her life. She could _not_ allow their loss.

Barbara didn’t know what her expression was like, but she knew that hot tears were pouring from her eyes and along her screwed-up, twisted face, as all her anger and hatred was released.

One of her escrima cracked against his brittle collarbone, the bone shattered; she beat the weapons against both arms until she was sure they were broken, then she threw them aside and launched herself from her chair so that they both fell, so that his body hit the ground with a _smack!_

“Barbara!” Jason shouted.

Her brother-in-law. Her _brother_. Her baby brother, that this monster had murdered, had turned around and beaten to a pulp right after he’d hurt her too.

Just fists now. She hit his face again, again, until her knuckles were bleeding, and the fake teeth that the dentist had used to replace his broken smile shattered like glass in his skull. Again. She felt the shockwave, she remembered the first time she’d done that, and she felt a surge of vindictive delight.

Then she felt another one at the keening wail he let out. He was nothing without his smile, after all.

But she kept hitting him, one blow after the next, raining it over his body too now, feeling the fragile ribs crunch and shatter under her fists, and for a moment, he was the men who’d tortured Dinah, the women who’d raped Dick, the man who’d shot Bruce’s parents and all the people who’d ever attacked her father. He was David Cain and Arthur Brown, he was even Ra’s al Ghul. Then her vision sharpened, but he was still the man who’d murdered Jason and seared himself on her mind, ripping her body apart.

Barbara didn’t know how long it was until she stopped hitting him and sat up again. But her knuckles were sore and split open, a mix of her red blood and the Joker’s blackish blood running down her wrists. His jaw was broken, twisted at an odd angle. His teeth were broken, poking pathetically from his bloody gums in shards. His face was a mess of blood, all beaten to the side. His arms were twisted at odd angles. His breath was a pathetic wheeze, and she wondered if she’d collapsed one of lungs while she was breaking his ribs. She wondered if the injuries she was inflicting wouldn’t heal right.

Good. She was sick of him recovering from Bruce’s beatings. So sick of him being able to heal and inflict _more fucking damage_  on the rest of the world.

She raised her fist once more.

Then a gun cocked.

“Barbara, move away.”

She lifted her head, looking right into Jason’s face, the streak of white hair falling into his eyes. He was so much bigger than he’d been at fifteen, covered in even more scars that the Lazarus Pit hadn’t been able to erase, including the Y-shaped mark from his autopsy cutting across his body.

He was pointing his gun right at the Joker’s head.

“No,” she told him.

“You’re gonna kill him with the way you’re beating him as it is,” he said roughly. “And I can’t let you put your first blood on your hands. I’ve already got plenty, let me spare you, and let me spare the rest of the world.”

“Jason.” She lifted her hands. “You have a life again. You have people you love. You can’t throw all that away now.”

“My happiness is not worth thousands more people suffering and dying!” he shouted. “Fucking — do you want this piece of shit doing to more people what he did to us? Him hurting _one_ more person is not an option to me!”

“And losing someone I care about is not an option to _me!_ ” Her voice rose higher. “I’ve already lost enough of my own accord, enough have already slipped through my fingers. You’re right. He deserves to die. He deserved to suffer for what he’s done to countless people. But I already lost you once to him, and _I won’t lose you again!_ ”

Jason looked almost lost. Like even after all this time, being loved, being put first, after the hell he’d gone through, it was still foreign to him.

She could understand that.

“Barbara...what about you?”

She looked down at her raw, calloused hands. It was his blood on her hands now, literally, instead of the other way around.

“Yeah. He’s hurt me, worse than anyone else ever hurt me. I won’t deny that.” A wheezing chuckle emerged from the broken, pulped figure under her. She addressed her next words to him too. “But I’ll tell you all what I already told you, you rotten piece of shit. You took _nothing_ from me.”

The laughter came to a rattling halt. The face that had haunted her for six years was wrecked, broken.

Barbara’s chest hitched, the corner of her mouth turned up until she was smiling. She noticed there was a long cut on his cheek that had been slashed open by the diamond on her engagement ring; she adjusted both bands on her left hand with care, wiping the blood off them with utter tenderness.

“I have so, so much more than I ever did before I was shot. I _am_ so much more. Because of _myself_. Because of what _I_ did, and how the people I love stood by me during. Not because of you.”

She pulled herself up, then up again into her wheelchair. She regarded him, wiping the blood away, flicking it off so that it splattered his jumpsuit.

“You’re irrelevant. You’re boring. Now that I’ve rebuilt my life, you’re _nothing_ to me. Nothing but a body under my hands, just like I was to you.” She shook her head back, then looked down one more time. “How’s that for a fucking joke?”

Her gaze then met Jason’s, inclining her head. He lowered his gun slowly, nodding in understanding.

The two of them had livelihoods. They had love. They would live out the last of their vengeance in the form of happiness.

But there was someone else who had been hurt too. Who had not yet had her revenge.

“Harleen?”

The other woman walked over to her, unusually quiet. She inclined her head to the side without her typical exaggerated mannerisms, genuinely surprised, maybe even touched.

“We’re going to leave, Harleen.” Barbara inclined her head towards the person who had hurt them. “He’s all yours. Do what you will.”

Jason nodded and grinned, big and proud.

“Fuckin’ wreck him, Harleen.”

Harley stared at them both in astonishment.

Then a grin of her own grew, and she holstered her gun, instead pulling her mallet from where it had been slung over her back.

“I sure as fuckin’ shootin’ _will_ , Robin.”

The Joker let out a long wheeze, a gasp of horror, of surprise.

“Not...” he choked out, the very last thing he managed to choke out, “not...that’s not funny...”

Harley hefted her mallet, lifting it high.

“No, puddin’. No, it’s not.”

Barbara took Jason’s hand in hers as they left, pulling the door back into place, as they went back out into the bright winter day. He sat down on the curb next to her wheels, tons of weight looking like they had fallen from his shoulders. Barbara, for her part, took out a mini first-aid kit and bandaged her hands, running her fingers over the callouses from her years of hard work. As, inside, the series of wet, cracking  _thwacks_ began, she exhaled, letting it spiral out and dissolve into the winter sky.

 

* * *

 

_Four Months Ago_

 

She was expecting the shout when it came.

“Happy birthday, Barbara!”

She laughed as they all jumped out at once, blowing kazoos and flinging colorful paper and wearing silly party hats at jaunty angles along with their nice outfits. She lifted her hand, smiling and wiping the confetti out of her hair.

“I get it, I’m thirty.” She picked confetti out of her eyebrow. “No need to emphasize it, you guys.”

“Bitch, I’m nearly _forty_ ,” Dinah laughed, putting her hands on her hips. There was a little gray in her black hair now, though you couldn’t see it through the shining blond. “I can emphasize how old you are all I want.”

“Hear hear!” Helena and Zinda yelled, lifting their champagne. All the other Birds of Prey whooped and punched the air, their infectious joy making Steph and Cass laugh, holding each other a little closer. Bruce offered her a rare, small smile while Selina grinned crookedly and Alfred inclined his head, gracefully satisfied. Jim wiped happy tears from his eyes, Sarah beamed at her. Dick held their cooing, happy baby in his arms, practically glowing with love. Tim excitedly snapped photos while Duke ran to get the first of her presents, and Damian insisted that she needed to see how he’d decorated the cake, and Jason grinned proudly at her like he’d never left.

“Hey!” Steph exclaimed. “You have to give a speech!”

Everyone yelled excitedly at once, concurring. Alfred, quick on the draw as always, offered her a glass of champagne. She cleared her throat and lifted it; everyone else did the same.

“Well. It’s good to see you all again. Some of you have known me for most of my life, some of you have only showed up recently. Most of you, I met sometime in the last six years. Since I lost my legs.”

The audience stirred.

“When that happened, I was sure the best days of my life were over. But in fact, the best days of my life were just about to begin. Since then, I’ve gone to places I never dreamed of, I’ve gone up against the worst villains that could be offered and I’ve won, I’ve become the best at what I was just good at, I’ve built an empire I never could’ve dared imagine. And all of you have been there for and with me along the way.

All I did, I did on my own. I am no one’s sidekick anymore, my life and my work is my own. But all of you, you enrich that life. I never thought I could be loved again, but you all proved me wrong. I never thought I could be free from the confines of my body or my fears, but I am proud of my body, and my fears are nothing compared to all of you.”

She cleared her throat again, tears prickling her eyes.

“I’ve now been Oracle for six years, for as long as I was Batgirl. Soon I’ll outstrip my own legacy, and a long time ago, that would’ve been bittersweet, but now, I couldn’t be happier about that. A long time ago, I was at my worst, but now I’m doing better than I ever was. I couldn’t be happier to reach this point in my life, to reach thirty. I couldn’t be happier about tomorrow.”

She was openly crying now, in front of everyone. She lifted the glass higher.

“To hell with anything else. I couldn’t be more grateful to have all this. I love all of you so much.”

Their cheers swept her up, so that she had to close her eyes. But not to escape. To hold onto everything, so that not one detail got away from her. She would never forget any of this, no, never, and then, she couldn’t be more grateful for, more welcoming towards another memory that would stay with her for the rest of her life.

 

* * *

 

Barbara was startled out of her thoughts a while later by approaching police sirens, and by a familiar growling voice.

“You sure took your sweet time guiding us here, Ivy, and — O — I mean, Ms. Gordon? Red Hood?”

Barbara looked up.

Batman was flanked not just by Poison Ivy, who despite the weather was still wearing nothing more than her usual leaves and a cocked eyebrow, but by an entire army. Every hero in Gotham that had answered the emergency summons: Batgirl, Black Bat, Robin, Red Robin, Signal, Nightwing, Batwoman, Flamebird, Question, Catwoman, Batwing, Talon, Strix, Huntress, Orpheus, Azrael, Onyx, Bluebird, and Manhunter. Together, they were beyond formidable, nigh unassailable. Except at the moment they mostly looked puzzled.

“Ivy, you said the Joker would be here,” Bruce said, sounding puzzled too. “What are the two of you doing here instead?”

“The Joker was here,” Barbara replied. Her tone was even, her hands were perfectly still in her lap. “Except, well...why do you think Ivy knew he was here? Because the reason she knew is in there with him.”

Ivy’s cool disdain was immediately superseded by surprise — and then by something unusual for her: a broad, genuine smile. She inclined her head upwards.

“I knew she could do it.”

“Yeah.” Jason shrugged. “As for us, well, we were just too late to stop her.”

“What do you mean —?”

It was then that the door opened, and out she stepped, with her hands raised in calm, cheerful surrender. She was also greeted by screams and yells of horror.

“S’okay, super-people!” Harley called out to them. “It ain’t my blood.”

She was absolutely drenched in the stuff. Her white cuffs, neckpiece, and makeup were splattered gruesomely, her costume covered in bone shards and chunks of organ and muscle and various other bits of gore. Her jester’s hat was in hand, presumably because it was soaked through, because even her blond pigtails had streaks of blood in them.

While everyone else stared in shock, Jason turned and faced her nonchalantly.

“You auditioning for a Tarantino movie or something?”

She just laughed, sounding free for the first time since they had started fighting her.

“See ya around, Robin.” Harley then turned and faced Barbara, winking so that only she could see. “And see ya around too, mysterious.”

She walked right up to Bruce and thrust her wrists out.

“Batman, I surrender. And I plead fully, 100% guilty to the murder of the Joker.”

Bruce almost froze in place. Then he stared for a little while, inclining his head.

“The Joker’s...dead?”

Hopeful whispers immediately rose from the superheroes of Gotham.

_“The Joker’s dead?”_

_“Is it true?”_

_“Can it be? After all this time?”_

“The Joker’s dead,” Harley confirmed. “Pretty fuckin’ dead, actually. There’s not much left of him ‘cept some mush and cracked bones and lotsa blood.”

Dead. Beyond certainty, dead. Nothing, not even the Lazarus Pit, could restore that kind of damage.

He was gone forever. He would never, ever come back.

There was a moment of silence.

Then, all at once, with a rush and a roar, every single member of their family and their allies started cheering at once.

Poison Ivy rushed over to her girlfriend and wrapped her up in an embrace, ignoring the gore, kissing her full on the mouth in front of everyone. Harley dropped her hat and held her, kissing her back, lifting one foot off the ground, her blood-soaked mallet still slung over her back.

Bruce let out a very long breath, then, not that surprisingly, offered up a small smile. A kind of relief, that maybe he wouldn’t express, but was born of long years of struggle and suffering that were now finally over.

When the flashing police cars roared to a halt seconds later, Harley and Ivy went to them willingly, their fingers interlocked, leaning into each other. The love and relief, the long-sought catharsis radiating off them was almost palpable, and Barbara couldn’t help but feel for them.

“Do you think that’s the last we’ll see of them?”

“Are you kidding? They _just_ broke out. They’ll definitely be back.”

Their allies kept cheering and jumping about, spinning each other around, but it was then that Bruce walked over to Jason and Barbara, immediately joined by the rest of their family.

“It’s good to see that you’re both okay,” he said, his gruff voice soaked through with warmth. “I’m very glad.”

“So are we, B,” Jason replied, standing up and wrapping an arm around his father’s shoulders. “Believe me, we really are.”

His siblings started talking a mile a minute, asking about how he’d known, how he felt about what Harley’d done, and he answered them all with his head held high, his posture unburdened by that old anger and bitterness while Barbara watched.

But his eldest brother excused himself for a moment, going over to put his hand on Barbara’s shoulder. She accepted his touch, looking up at him.

“I normally hate it when someone’s killed,” Dick admitted. “But right now? I can only imagine how much of a relief this must be for you.”

She smiled.

“Yeah. We’re safe from him now, Dick. I’ll never have to worry about him anymore. He’ll never hurt anyone like he hurt me ever again.”

He bent down and kissed her head. Though it was still too cold and too bright, she sighed happily, her smile broadening.

When her phone rang, she kept holding Dick’s hand as she answered it, holding it up to her ear.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Hi, honey. I saw...I saw what happened, it’s on the news right now.” He sounded almost disbelieving, like it was too good to be true. “Is it true?”

“It’s true. He’s gone.”

Jim sighed too, for a long, long time, letting all his relief pour into one breath.

“I’m glad. Maybe nothing can make up for that one night, but I’m glad.”

“I’m not even sad about that one night anymore, Dad.” She looked around, looked at the cops ready to take Harley away, while she snuggled in the backseat with Ivy, the other cops talking with the press. The heroes celebrating, the others, the family, embracing each other. All bathed in clear winter sun, in the January that felt a lot like a beginning. “It’s over now. It’s been over for a long time.”

“So everyone’s all safe?”

“Yes. Everyone’s all safe.”

“And you, Barbara? You’re okay?”

Her son babbled faintly in the background of the other end. Her family chattered excitedly amongst themselves, one of their own back in the fold for good. Two women, villains though they might be, relaxed in their catharsis. Her husband’s hand rested on her shoulder, and her father’s voice echoed in her ear.

She looked up at the endless sky, and Barbara suddenly knew, as much as she knew that the chair hadn’t been a burden for years but simply a part of her, that though the memory would never leave her, she would not have nightmares the next time she slept.

“Yeah, Dad. In every way possible, I’m completely okay.”


End file.
